What Leaders and Managers Can Learn from The One Thing
Trying to personally push forward every initiative your team is working on is the specific trap The One Thing names, and it's an especially easy one to fall into when a manager's job can look like touching everything at once.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
The domino effect
One well-chosen priority, pursued with real focus, can make several other team problems easier to solve; spreading your attention thin across every initiative rarely produces the same result.
A manager checks in on every initiative a little each week, and none of them gets the sustained attention that would actually move it forward.
Identify the one initiative that, if it succeeded, would make several other team goals easier, and give it your real, sustained attention this week.
The focusing question
Asking what one thing you could do such that doing it makes everything else on your team's plate easier or unnecessary cuts a long list of initiatives down to the one that deserves your attention most right now.
A manager distributes their attention evenly across every initiative out of a sense of fairness, and none receives the depth of support it needed.
Before your next planning session, ask the focusing question and let the answer determine where you spend your own time this week.
Time blocking to protect the one thing
A priority that doesn't get protected time on your calendar competes with every meeting request on equal footing, and meeting requests usually win.
A manager means to work on their team's top priority "between meetings," and it never gets real attention because nothing protected the time.
Block a specific period this week for your team's one thing, and treat it with the same protection you'd give a meeting with your own manager.
Debunking the myths that get in the way
Believing that being available for everything is the same as leading well, or that spreading attention evenly is the fairest approach, quietly works against real focus.
Being available to your team and protecting time for your top priority aren't opposites — a clear, communicated block for the one thing, alongside set availability for everything else, lets both happen.
Name one thing, honestly
What is the one initiative on your team's plate that, if it succeeded, would make several other goals easier? What would it take to give it your real attention this week?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Block a specific period this week for your team's one thing, and treat it with the same protection you'd give a meeting with your own manager.